‘Where the Wild Things Are’ and James Gandolfini’s Defining Film Performance

James Gandolfini’s passing, to be expected, has brought out a wave of mourning online, but the most surprising aspect of the responses has been the sheer breadth of work mentioned as personal favorites. As Scott Tobias so rightly noted on Twitter, seeing nearly all of his roles mentioned as among his finest is one of the best tributes that could be made to the actor’s talent.

Of all Gandolfini’s memorable, show-stealing performances, my own favorite is one in which that iconic, imposing but charismatic image of his does not even make an appearance. I am talking of his voice role in Spike Jonze’s adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are”. I haven’t seen the film since shortly after its home video release, but Gandolfini’s Carol has never left me since 2009.

The central Wild Thing encountered by the runaway Max, Carol is the most blatant projection of the human boy’s fear and loathing, the clearest indication that these beasts are the monsters of the child’s id-driven imagination, as well as the product of his quest for a relatable father figure. Scooping up Max as a king, Carol provides that paternal quality for the boy to replace the dad he lacks. But because Carol is also a reflection of the child’s inner mind, he does not have the maturity to correspond with his size and sense of power.

Look at this beautiful scene where Carol talks about the fate of the desert and Max discusses the eventual death of the Sun:

Neither has the wisdom nor maturity to give answers to their unsettling worries: Carol knows that the desert that formed from rock will eventually turn to dust but does not know what that will mean, while Max’s observation of the Sun’s limited lifespan is rattled off as it no doubt entered his head: merely a factoid he absorbed while paying half-attention in class. But Gandolfini’s voice betrays a sense not only of curiosity but disquiet: knowing that this bleak expanse of land will only get worse is hard enough to process, but the news of the sun. The illusion of Carol’s safety breaks down, only to be instantly re-inflated by braggadocio as he assures Max (and, no less so, himself) that a tiny thing like the Sun could never concern them. In an instant, whatever stability Carol offers is replaced by the awareness of his false shade, all from the subtle inflections of Gandolfini’s voice.

Even better is the terrifying scene in which Carol realizes Max is not all he’s made out to be:

The intervallic gaps of Carol’s mood swings, as well as the focus of his inchoate feelings, rely fully on Gandolfini’s vocal pitches. The clip starts with Carol raging at Max for not living up to his promise, the monster’s confidence in his king totally eroded. When Carol’s best friend, Douglas, finally says aloud what everyone but Carol knew all along, that Max is no king, suddenly his friend turns on him. Having himself come close to calling Max a fraud, Carol cannot handle hearing that doubt confirmed aloud. The anger turns to an aghast whimper, the voice of a child who has flirted with a swear word but blanches when he hears it actually spoken. “Don’t say that. How could you say that? Don’t you dare say that,” Carol rapidly replies.

Gandolfini puts the emphasis in different places in each sentence, mapping out a frenzy of emotions in less than five seconds. The inability to pick a specific target for his feelings of anger, rage, resentment, confusion and hurt, bouncing viciously between the person who wounded him and the person who dared to point it out, completely reverses the father-son dynamic of Max and his imaginary friend: now it is Max, the progenitor of this vision of the id, who has become the neglectful, deceitful father and Carol who acts out the boy’s feelings toward his own dad. This is, naturally, a thematic shift established by Jonze’s direction and the script, but it is Gandolfini’s voice, with its slow erosion of wisdom and its sudden escalation of hostilities, that truly communicates the change.

Celebrity voice casting is, by and large, a useless and money-wasting gimmick. (Look up nearly any interview with Billy West to get some idea of how voice actors view such stunt-casting.) Often, big-name talent get paid more simply to talk in their normal voices than voice actors who can perform a half-dozen or more fully fleshed-out vocal parts, all for the dubious reward of slapping a familiar name on a poster. But Gandolfini gives an honest-to-God performance, one that covers a broad emotional spectrum but is always real and raw, capable of extracting considerable amounts of fear and heartbreak from the flesh he places on the costumed-and-computer-animated fuzzball that puts a body to his voice.

Gandolfini will rightly be remembered for Tony Soprano, unquestionably the most influential TV character of the modern era. That role built upon the actor’s live self over an extended period of time, hiding the mobster’s uninhibited macho id under a calculating superego that knows how to get what it wants without sacrificing an image of collected calm. As a part, Carol is the opposite of Tony: a disembodied presence that aggressively pursues what it has not even identified as a true desire. It’s the most visible example of how much Gandolfini liked to push himself, which can be seen in the acidic confidence he brought to a politically minded general in “In the Loop”, the “Oh, what next?” exasperation of his scandalized mayor in “The Taking of Pelham 123” and so much more.

Gandolfini never wanted for acclaim, but his work in “Where the Wild Things Are” is not merely a great performance but a defining one in its field of voice acting. The ultimate melancholy of the role makes it a fitting role to get stuck in my head at the moment, though that also makes the prospect of revisiting Gandolfini’s exceptional work in it too painful a task for the time being. The wrenching farewell scene that ends Max’s time with the Wild Things is not available online (or at least, it is not available as anything other than a repurposed music video), but if Gandolfini could play Carol as his own parent and child, the keening howl he creates for the monster’s goodbye makes an appropriately self-reflexive send off for himself.

This piece was originally published on Not Just Movies. It has been revised by the original author for the purposes of this republication.

Categories: Features

Tags: Jake Cole, James gandolfini, Max Powers, Spike jonze, Where the wild things are

Director’s Cut: James Marsh (‘Shadow Dancer’)

When I met James Marsh in the lavish basement of Manhattan’s unfailingly hip Crosby Hotel, the energetic 50-year-old filmmaker was crouched over his iPad with the wide-eyed fervor of a child consumed by his Game Boy in the backseat of the family car.  Marsh, it turns out, wasn’t in the throes of a spirited Pokémon duel, but rather negotiating the finer points of his next project. Of course, this just made things that much more terrible when I promptly spilled my coffee all over him and his device before I could even say “hello.” Awesome. What made this naturally awkward situation even worse is that the world could really use another James Marsh film, and the last thing I want to do is get in the way of that happening as soon as possible.

“Shadow Dancer,” the latest “narrative” film from a director who alternates between fiction and documentary modes in such a way as to reveal the uselessness of that strict dichotomy, premiered at Sundance all the way back in January of 2012, and is only now reaching American audiences in theaters and on VOD. Set amidst the dwindling Troubles of Northern Ireland circa 1993, “Shadow Dancer” is a wrenchingly tense drama about a mother (the suddenly ubiquitous Andrea Riseborough) who, after botching an IRA plot to detonate a bomb in the London Tube, is caught by the British authorities (as embodied by Clive Owen and Gillian Anderson) and given an impossible choice: She can either be imprisoned for life, or return to her close-knit terrorist family as a government informant. A far cry from the inspired fantasticality of Marsh’s Oscar-winning “Man on Wire,” “Shadow Dancer” is a spare and severe piece of work about betrayal, inherited violence and the politics of trust (read our full review here).

When Marsh returned to the table after cleaning himself off (his iPad was unharmed, and he couldn’t possibly have been nicer about my little mishap), we chatted about the divide between the personal side of politics, the influence of Robert Bresson on his work and whether or not heavily accented English-language films should be subtitled for American audiences.

FILM.COM: “Shadow Dancer.” There’s a scene in the film where Collette is told that a volunteer is never off-duty, and she responds that a mom is never off-duty, either. And it reminded me of this Julia Hallam quote, where she writes: “It is now less clear what does and does not constitute the category of ‘politics’: if the personal, the cultural and the social are all included within the political, then all texts are political in some sense and none are specifically so.” And I was curious if you think that “Shadow Dancer” is a political film, or if you think that such designations are ultimately useless. 

JAMES MARSH: In the sense of that quote, “Shadow Dancer” is a political film. But of course, the given is politics in that situation. What I wanted to do was to take overt politics out of the script that I was given, and make it much more about the psychology of a family and the psychology of betrayal – how spying on your own family would feel on a day-to-day basis. The situation in Northern Ireland was by its very nature political, and now thank god is more political than anything else. But certainly what I didn’t want to do was take any sides in this film, neither side is “right” and both have their grievances, and during the time the film is set everyone has been tainted by what’s been going on for 30 years.

Her life is like a weed that grows around this conflict.

Indeed. You’re born into this conflict, you don’t get to choose what side you’re on. If you’re born in a certain part of Belfast, you will be on one side.

And of course how the film opens reflects that, in media res into this divide. I can only speak for myself, but I feel like many Americans understand the violence of the Troubles, but not its root cause. 

Not many people do, quite frankly. Not even many of the people involved.

And in the film, the violence is just a part of Collette’s DNA, a part of who she is. She doesn’t have an opportunity to live any other way. 

What’s remarkable about so many conflicts is that, without them, these same people would probably be reasonable and decent people, and yet it’s the circumstances that brings out the beast in us.

And, to go back to something you said that I found illuminating, the hope is that it becomes even more political so that it can become less… human. 

Politics is about negotiation and dialogue, insults and blackmail and everything that goes along with it. But it’s not about bloodshed.

I thought it was really interesting that this story, which is based on the fiction of a novel, is about a woman. I’m wondering how integral that was to the story, and how gender plays into ideas of trust. 

Well, that’s a very interesting set of questions and speculations. The script I got was much longer and more complicated and had much more politics in it, and it was my instinct to go and make Collette the protagonist of the story, and therefore to enter the conflict through a female point-of-view, and also a mother’s point-of-view. The generational aspect is significant so far as the story plays out. That was one of the appeals to me, that you could do this, that women were involved in this very actively in many ways. How it plays out… Collette and the women have much less power than the men, part of gender identity I guess, and the fact that she has the least power makes her have the most appalling choices. But those choices eventually empower her in some perverse way.

Well, I was going to say, I understand what you mean when you say that she ostensibly has less power than the men – 

– Less given power.

Sure, but she and her mother are uniquely endowed with a power that the men in the story can fathom and suspect, but not wield. 

A power available to them in part because they’re mothers. Collette can only do what she’s doing based on the defining principle of her motherhood. That’s the bargain she’s offered: Your freedom relies on you snooping on your family to save another part of your family.

Also Check Out: An Exclusive Clip from “Shadow Dancer”

And then we return to the notion of how dangerous it is when the domestic and the political become inextricable from one another.

And that’s exactly what plays out in Northern Ireland. And you see it in neighbors. Your neighbor over there is your enemy because of certain circumstances, and not because there’s any good reason for them to be your enemy. And that’s scary stuff.

Absolutely. And I wonder… so far as the end of the film is concerned, and I hate to question an ambiguous ending, I feel like that’s a terrible thing to do because it’s left ambiguous for a reason, but I’ll try to make this as abstract as possible… do you think that Collette is left with the potential for happiness or a way to find some sort of catharsis in the future?

How interesting. Well, I think she’s a woman who’ll be haunted by what she’s done for the rest of her life, and as an emblem for Northern Ireland itself, time does heal… superficially. It’s happened in that part of the country, and in the UK, and now there’s a generation coming of age, 18 or 19 years old, that don’t know that conflict on a daily basis. If you live through that conflict it will always mark you, somehow, if you see Martin McGuiness who is a known IRA terrorist, making jokes with Ian Paisley who is a Protesstant minister and politician, then there’s hope for all of us if those two can get along.

It does feel like a hopeful ending… 

If you know the history of what then happens, this dialogue, this political informant exploitation leads somewhere, and that’s significant. What we later found out generally is that the British secret service had put a lot of high-level informants into the IRA by this time, and they got very good at doing that. And the IRA had become a very good terrorist organization, both forces were battle-hardened. So you could say, cynically, that one of the reasons that the British government were able to make those first tentative steps towards a dialogue is that they knew that certain factions of the IRA were gong to be receptive to them. There was a very famous note that was passed to the British government from the IRA saying that the conflict was over. So this was going on behind the scenes, much of which we’ll never know about, and there was collateral damage to people, but it all lead to somewhere that was better.

You didn’t actually film in Belfast, correct? You filmed in Dublin?

Right, but that was entirely financial.

But ideally you would have filmed in Belfast?

Oh, definitely, we tried desperately to do that, but we couldn’t make the money work. Ultimately you have to go where you can make the film, and Dublin has many similarities to Belfast.

Sure, it’s not like I could tell the difference. 

It’s only an hour’s drive from Belfast, and they both have a very strong Victorian flavor to them. But you can find housing estates that are very similar in both cities, and the weather is the same. It’s not like shooting in Monte Carlo.

Would you have felt as if you were tapping into something vibrant, a living history, if you shot in Belfast? 

Definitely, that’s why we wanted to do it. We thought it would be a very good idea. Andrea Riseborough did a lot of that work herself, she spent a lot of time in Belfast during pre-production to get in touch with that history and perfect the accent. People absorb things, so she brought all of that back to Dublin which was great for the rest of us.

I hesitate to get into the subject that I imagine dominates so many of your interviews, this dichotomy between your narrative features and your documentary films, I’m of the mind that both terms are dirty words. But watching your films, I feel like you upend the obvious approach, with your documentary films being more likely to be shot on sticks with a locked-off camera, while your narrative films tend to feel a bit looser and feature a more handheld aesthetic.  

That’s true, and the first film I shot was all hand-held, just for financial reasons because we had to shoot as quickly as possible, without much finessing. But that showed me what hand-held could do. There’s actually not much hand-held in “Shadow Dancer,” though people think… well, there’s been observations made in quite a number of the reviews I’ve seen that there’s a lot of hand-held but there really isn’t much at work whatsoever. It’s much more, dare I say it, controlled, even more than “Red Riding” was. But it’s true, you’re trying to get at a level of realism in a feature film that documentary films implicitly provide you, and I tend to get away from that. In “Man on Wire” the reconstructions are very fantastical, they’re not supposed to be realistic, they’re cartoonish. They’re deliberately like a heist movie, very genre, because reality is a given.

So when you’re approaching a film, you don’t first consider the mode of filmmaking and then build your aesthetic around that, it sort of happens more organically? 

Definitely. Stylistically, you work out from material rather than impose things upon it. In “Man on Wire,” we filmed the reconstructions like a heist or a silent film because that’s the way that Philip Petit saw it, so I thought why not make that real, somehow? Whereas this film was very much about creating a level of anxiety and dread for the main character from the get-go.

To speak for the critical community, I think there’s one scene that really cements a false impression that hand-held is used much more than it is, the scene where Collette puts her hood on and her partner gets shot… it registers ecstatically in a way that might not be representative of how you filmed it. 

Well, that was steadicam! You know, whatever people make of my films is fine by me, but there is that sort of impression because it is a realistic backdrop, a Ken Loach kind of look. Our approach was very methodical in terms of our shot sequences and rhythms we worked out ahead of time with the DP.

What about cinematographer Rob Hardy’s previous work made him feel like the right choice to you for this?

We were companions on “Red Riding,” Rob shot the first “Red Riding” film. And I read that screenplay, of the first film, and I almost did that film and had ideas on how to do it, and Rob seemed to get those ideas and he put them all on screen. And I’ve worked with a DP named Igor Martinovich who’s based in New York, and I was very curious for Igor to come shoot a film in Leeds as a Croatian living in New York, but when it came to “Shadow Dancer” I felt like I got on well with Rob, we liked the same movies.

You could speak to each other in references. 

You know that you value the same things, and therefore it was a very pleasing and open collaboration. And I tend to become friends with DPs, all of my best friends are DPs, that’s one of the great things about making films because if you have those relationships they’re based on trust and loyalty.

I read that you watched Robert Bresson’s “Au Hasard Balthazar” when you were making “Project Nim,” which makes eminent sense, and I was wondering if there were any films you watched as touchstones for “Shadow Dancer?” 

Bresson, again! I mena it sounds awful to make Bresson your reference point when you’re not fit to clean his shoes as a filmmaker, but the opening scene of the film as written was a big long elaborate bike chase through the streets of London, and I thought there was no way we could afford to do it. And I remembered that scene in “Pickpocket” where they go to the underground in Paris and it’s just the most brilliantly tense scene done with the most simple, economic means. Bresson is a great director of thrillers, “A Man Escaped” is so tense and exciting, yet he’s known for his spiritual quests and his Catholic worldview and his work with actors and how he emptied them out. And yet he’s a great director of thrillers, so Bresson again loomed large. He’s just an amazingly good filmmaker, and he shoots things so simply. It’s so unfussy, and done very simply and it’s all very very clear what he wants you to take away from the film and the performances. So he’s a great study.

Well, I look forward to seeing your “L’Argent.” 

I look forward to making it!

One last question, a purely semantic one, but there’s an ongoing debate as to what to do when you have thickly accented English-language films playing in America, should they be subtitled?

Subtitled, for sure. Absolutely. People are struggling to understand, and there’s so much whispering in the film, I’m all in favor of making the language as available as possible, and if subtitles are possible then by all means include them. In the British isles you get in tune with the various accents, you hear people from Scotland and you hear people from Newcastle and it’s part of your linguistic repertoire, whereas Americans don’t get the same kind of exposure to the endless variety of English that are spoken in the British Isles. “Red Riding” was released with subtitles and I was very happy about that.

Categories: Interviews

Tags: Andrea riseborough, Clive owen, Director's cut, Interview, James marsh, Shadow dancer

Why ‘Spring Breakers’ Is the Best Thing James Franco Has Ever Done

James Franco. American icon, he of the Academy Awards hosting letdown, the very same man who brought you Harry Osborne in the “Spider-Man” franchise. He’s an enigma, this Franco, appearing one weekend in “Oz the Great and Powerful” a kid-friendly PG film, and then the next in the extremely R-Rated “Spring Breakers.”

James Franco doesn’t do one thing, he does everything. And as the great and powerful Steven Colbert noted, James Franco is a renaissance man … who also might be a complete fraud.

Even the director of “Spring Breakers,” the delightfully named Harmony Korine, had this to say about Franco’s performance in the film:

“He didn’t want to rehearse. When he put in the cornrows and the gold teeth and I heard the accent, I was like ‘whoa.’ He was a maniac.”

The trailer pretty much speaks for itself, a collection of y’alls, leers, and threesomes:

You would be hard pressed to construct a trailer more bonkers than that even if I spotted you Dennis Rodman and a case of Four Loco. Still, if “From Justin to Kelly” has taught us anything, it’s that a spring break film can launch one’s career into the stratosphere. It’s all been leading up to this, his masterpiece, Franco imprinting on the world in a big way. As such, let’s take a look at the Franco’s seminal works, and why they can’t quite measure up to “Spring Breakers”.

Also check out: The Francography!

“Freaks and Geeks”
Why it’s great: Here’s where we first became aware of James Franco, though sadly this beloved series only lasted eighteen episodes. Who’s up for a cheeky Kickstarter?
Why it’s still inconsequential compared to “Spring Breakers”: The freakiness level on display here still aired on NBC. How risque can you get on NBC? Besides Jay Leno I mean.

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes”
Why it’s great: The Apes really brought the acting thunder in this film.
Why it’s still inconsequential compared to “Spring Breakers”: The drugs here turn apes into super apes. The drugs in “Spring Breakers” turn James Franco into Gary Oldman from “True Romance”. Checkmate.

“127 Hours”
Why it’s great: This might be Franco’s best performance in which he doesn’t wear a gold grill and indiscriminately fire off handguns.
Why it’s still inconsequential compared to “Spring Breakers”: His co-star in “127 Hours” was a rock. Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens are much better than a rock. Nicer, too.

“Tristan + Isolde”
Why it’s great: Hahahahahahahhahaha. … History?
Why it’s still inconsequential compared to “Spring Breakers”: Sorry, just seeing if you were still paying attention (wipes tear away from eye). Sidenote: Don’t ever watch “Tristan + Isolde”. The film feels shorter than the opera on which it’s based, and that opera was written by Wagner.

“Milk”
Why it’s great: The inspiring true story of Harvey Milk, James Franco helped portray the rampant discrimination same-sex partners faced in the ’70s.
Why it’s still inconsequential compared to “Spring Breakers”: It’s hard to argue that even a dramatization of the life and times of Harvey Milk is less consequential than “Spring Breakers,” but it’s not hard to argue that at no point in “Milk” did anyone shout “Bikinis and Big Booties Y’all, that’s what life is about!” We rest our case.

“Spider-Man”
Why it’s great: Sadly, it’s not, but it is consequential, simply based upon the box-office returns.
Why it’s still inconsequential compared to “Spring Breakers”: No one in the franchise is named “Alien,” as James Franco is in “Spring Breakers” and thus we rule your Spidey art invalid. Also, The Green Goblin wears a horrible face-mask, whereas “Spring Breakers” proves that a nice shiny grill is always the right way to go. Remember kids: Always.

In the cold light of day, it’s easy to surmise that we might never see a better version of James Franco than the one we see this weekend. He’s a man in full, perhaps not the Franco we want, but definitely the one we need. Spring break, you guys. Spring break, forever.

Laremy wrote the book on film criticism and was too busy getting ahead on the next semester’s assignments to go to spring break.

Categories: Features

Tags: Harmony Korine, James franco, Spider-man, Spring Breakers

The Wizards of Oz: James Franco vs. Frank Morgan

It took Dorothy and company a whole movie to lift the veil on “The Wizard of Oz,” but the better part of a hundred years has given this weekend’s “Oz the Great and Powerful” cinema-goers a touch more preparation for what to expect from the younger version of that man behind the giant curtain. Sure, the new installment revolves around how the Wizard came to be in the first place, but fans can likely expect to see all the kooky smoke and mirrors trickery of old come through just the same.

Really, the biggest distinction might exist within the two chaps playing the guy, Frank Morgan and James Franco. Upon inspection of even their most generic biographical details, the two pretty much seem(ed) to be exactly the opposite of one another. Seriously, the differences between the gents are almost comically severe.

For starters, Frank Morgan came from New York City and was the eleventh (11th!) child of spirits sellers, while James Franco was born in Palo Alto, California to a pair of Stanford-educated intellectual types – a writer and a businessman – and was the first of three boys.

Morgan attended Cornell University right out of the high school gate and brothered up with the boys at Phi Kappa Psi, while Franco, who’d been through the legal ringer a few times already during his disaffected youth, dropped out of UCLA his freshman year and started working the fryer at McDonald’s to afford his acting class pursuits. In all fairness to James Franco, though, he made up his education in spades and now boasts multiple fine arts degrees from prestigious schools (not including Cornell). He’s even said to have set a record for most credits taken in a single semester.

Next, Old Francis M. got his first big break by appearing on the Broadway stage, while James, who supposedly went by the name Ted at some point in his wacky adolescence, sloughed through various TV guest spots in L.A. before landing the now-cult classic one season series “Freak and Geeks.”

 

Franky got hitched at the tender age of twenty-four – the same year he started acting – and had a son, but James is still quite the eligible bachelor at thirty-four.

In his spare time, Frank Morgan fancied boating and hitting the family sauce, while James Franco seems to fancy himself a modern day Renaissance Man whose zest for activity has made him a teacher, a director, a painter, a writer, a musician and everything else under the umbrella of artistry. The two seem politically polar opposites as well, as James Franco exhibits a rather loosey-goosey sort of liberalism while Frank Morgan was regarded as a strict conservative.

As for their rumored behaviors on set, well, Frank Morgan was said to have toted around a briefcase full of mini-bottles while James Franco is known to do things like read Homer and James Joyce in between takes. On the other hand, Morgan has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and James Franco just received his first … and brought an Oz doll with him to the ceremony.

These two gents might live on grouped in Hollywood history as the Wizards that once were, but we’ll sure remember them to be two wildly different individuals.

Categories: Features

Tags: Frank Morgan, James franco, Oz: The Great and Powerful, The Wizard of Oz

Is James Gunn a ‘Guardian’ of Sexism and Homophobia?

We were pretty excited when Marvel tapped “Slither” director James Gunn as their unconventional choice to helm 2014's comedic sci-fi comic adaptation “Guardians of the Galaxy,” as he had the perfect blend of genre love and satiric bent.

Unfortunately, that penchant for wild satire may be coming back to haunt him today, as geek girl site The Mary Sue unearthed a post from February, 2011 on James Gunn’s site titled “The 50 Superheroes You Most Want to Have Sex With,” which was voted on by fans and then given extensive commentary by Gunn himself. And therein lay the problem.

While it seems like a lot of the “jokes” reveal a bit of a sexist/homophobic streak, if not downright misogyny, an argument could be made that the whole idea of the list itself is meant to be absurd, especially when Gunn calls Gambit “the Galactus of C*ck!”

Here are three particularly unwholesome passages by Gunn; judge for yourself whether this is tongue-in-cheek or foot-in-mouth:

Sue Storm (Invisible Girl): “A+ choice, guys! Just once wouldn’t you want to look back and forth from a pretty blonde’s face, to your penis actually having an orgasm inside of her vagina?! I know I would.”

Jessica Drew (Spider-Woman): “The whole time I’m f**king her I can’t get her face out of my mind as the skrull leader who tried to conquer the world. I know it’s not her fault, but I just can’t help it. So I finish on her face to help block out the painful memories. There. That’s better.”

Wally West (The Flash): “Many of the people who voted for the Flash were gay men. I have no idea why this is. But I do know if I was going to get f**ked in the butt I too would want it to be by someone who would get it over with quick.”

Yeah, can’t exactly say any of those are knee-slappers, but in Gunn’s defense, it’s kind of his style to walk that edge. After all, this is the guy that made an episode of “PG-Porn” called “Nailing Your Wife” (around the time he divorced actress Jenna Fischer, mind you) featuring Nathan Fillion killing Aria Giovanni with a nail gun through the head.

Comics editor Rachel Edidin has come out saying that people close to Gunn insist this was most definitely written to parody lady-hatin’ nerds that exist by the thousands, but may have fallen wide of the mark.

“If Gunn’s list is satire, it’s bad satire,” says Edidin, “because it skews incredibly close to material that’s not only already out there, but that comes from official media and in some cases industry professionals. There’s a significant slice of the comics community that is that misogynist and homophobic, and says so loudly and frequently.”

While we’re willing to give Gunn the benefit of the doubt, it’s pretty inarguable that this was a failed attempt at un-PC humor, and was most likely taken seriously by a fanbase that prefers its superheroes in outfits that are less-than-2-degrees away from bondage gear. This is not unlike Zack Snyder’s extremely degrading female empowerment movie “Sucker Punch,” which the filmmakers and cast stressed was all about parodying female stereotypes in comics and video games, but really just enforced images of them as whores in skimpy outfits.

Gunn has already removed the offending items from his site, as well as “Nailing Your Wife,” oddly enough. But when you’re put at the helm of a high-profile $100-million+ Disney movie, this is the kind of scrutiny you can expect. Removing the piece is not enough, and he will definitely have to make a statement of some kind in the coming days and hopefully create an intelligent dialogue about these attitudes… or just be given the boot by Mickey Mouse.

Categories: Features

Tags: Guardians of the Galaxy, James Gunn

The Best and Worst of Every James Bond Movie

In honor of “Skyfall” demolishing box office records worldwide and opening in the States this Friday, we combed through the previous 22 titles — and even the two non-canon films, the 1967 spoof “Casino Royale” and 1983's “Never Say Never Again” — to determine the highs and lows of bad men, good girls, gadgets, guns and puns over the years.

Best One-Liner: “That’s a Smith & Wesson, and you’ve had your six,” in “Dr. No.”
Though James Bond’s penchant for wordplay is impressive, this line succinctly shows off the laser-sharp skills that keep him alive. Who has time to count the bullets flying at him? Bond, James Bond. And that baddie’s outta bullets.

Runners-Up: “Shocking,” after tossing an electric fan into a tub in “Goldfinger”; “I think he got the point,” after impaling an assassin with a spear gun in “Thunderball.”

Worst One-Liner: “Playing his golden harp,” in “Goldfinger.”
Auric Goldfinger is a formidable villain, so once he gets sucked out of that aircraft at the end, you’d think Bond would have something witty up his sleeve. We suggest, “Sucks to be him” or “He needed to get some air” for the inevitable remake, and yes, we would like royalties.

Runners-Up: “Yes, she had her kicks,” after Klebb, wielding shoe spikes, is killed in “From Russia with Love”; “He had a lot of guts,” after a henchman is shredded by a snow blower in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”

Best Bond Girl: Countessa Teresa di Vicenzo, played by Diana Rigg in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”
After saving her from drowning and the clutches of Blofeld, Bond actually falls in love with Tracy instead of tossing her aside… only for her to be gunned down by Blofeld on their wedding day. Sad but sweet proof that James can’t have nice things.

Runners-Up: Pussy Galore, played by Honor Blackman in “Goldfinger”; Tatiana Romanova, played by Daniela Bianchi in “From Russia with Love.”

Worst Bond Girl: Dr. Christmas Jones, Denise Richards in “The World is Not Enough.”
Denise Richards has gotten the most (and most well-deserved) flack of all the Bond girls for having a silly name and an unbelievable job. Even in a world where being dipped in gold is a viable method of murder, Richards playing a nuclear physicist stretches the bounds of imagination. At least she looks the part of a Bond girl.

Runners-Up: Solitaire, played by Jane Seymour in “Live and Let Die”; Jinx, played by Halle Berry in “Die Another Day.”

Best Henchman (or Woman!): Jaws, played by Richard Kiel in “The Spy Who Loved Me” and “Moonraker.”
Well, sure, he’s as big and strong as any number of other lackeys, but those steel teeth and that stoic demeanor have sure gone a long way to making Jaws something of a fan favorite, to the point where Jaws actually helps Bond to save the day. It’s ridiculous, but endearingly so.

Runners-Up: Oddjob, played by Harold Sakata in “Goldfinger”; Xenia Onatopp, played by Famke Janssen in “GoldenEye.”

Worst Henchman (or Woman!): Nick Nack, played by Hervé Villechaize in “The Man with the Golden Gun.”
Here’s where the series’ novelty factor backfires. James squaring off against Tattoo from “Fantasy Island” was never going to be much better than super-silly, and sure enough, it isn’t.

Runners-Up: Kronsteen, played by Vladek Sheybal in “From Russia with Love”; Mischka and Grischka, played by David and Anthony Meyer in “Octopussy.”

Best Theme Song: “Goldfinger,” Shirley Bassey.
If any singer defines the sultry style of the series, it’s Ms. Bassey. She also sang “Diamonds Are Forever” and “Moonraker,” but “Goldfinger” encapsulates the danger and seduction with which we’ve come to associate 007.

Runners-Up: “Live and Let Die,” Paul McCartney and Wings; “Tomorrow Never Dies,” Sheryl Crow.

Worst Theme Song: “Never Say Never Again,” Lani Hall.
Naturally, a knock-off Bond movie made for a suitably watered-down sound, and Hall’s vocals are laughably lounge-worthy.

Runners-Up: “License to Kill,” Gladys Knight; “Die Another Day,” Madonna.

Best Gadget: The Aston Martin in “Goldfinger.”
This baby’s got everything: seat belts, airbags, leather interior, headlight guns, oil slicks, ejector seat, tire-slashing hubcaps, alternating license plates. Plus, you won’t believe the gas mileage.

Runners-Up: The armed briefcase in “From Russia with Love”; the laser watch in “GoldenEye.”

Worst Gadget: The jet pack in “Thunderball.”
How not to be an effectively inconspicuous secret agent, step #1: go flying loudly through the air in broad daylight.

Runners-Up: The gondola hovercraft in “Moonraker”; the Felix Lighter in “Live and Let Die.”

Best Plan for World Domination: Holding atomic weapons for ransom in “Thunderball” and “Never Say Never Again.”
Call us old-fashioned, but for as often as Bond villains attempt to discreetly pit nations against one another and induce nuclear war, it seems far more reasonable to actually have some country’s weapons armed and available for ransom. If you’re going to be devious, be pragmatic about it.

Runners-Up: Irradiating America’s supply of gold in “Goldfinger”; playing a perfectly legal card game to finance terrorism in “Casino Royale,” in both 1967 and 2006 versions.

Worst Plan for World Domination: Toppling missiles at Cape Canaveral in “Dr. No.”
Perhaps this isn’t fair to judge in the wake of eventual wide-scale plots, but doesn’t botching one NASA base seem a little small potatoes? You know what the government will do after a while? Move their rockets and missiles away from Crab Key. Problem solved!

Runners-Up: Brainwashing babes to destroy global agriculture in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”; free heroin for everybody in “Live and Let Die.”

Categories: Lists

Tags: 007, casino royale, daniel craig, Die Another Day, Dr. No, From Russia with Love, George Lazenby, GoldenEye, Goldfinger, james bond, Live and Let Die, Moonraker, never say never again, Octopussy, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Pierce Brosnan, Roger Moore, sean connery, Skyfall, The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, The World Is Not Enough, Thunderball, timothy dalton, Skyfall, James Bond